He Who Breaks the Earth (The Gods-Touched Duology)
He Who Breaks the Earth: Chapter 18

Considering Mateo only half hoped that tipping the boat would work, he was quite surprised to replace himself in the churning water, his boots and coat dragging at him as the river current pushed him one way and the ocean waves pushed him back.

I helped, of course, Willow crowed, even as the Warlord pulled the buckles free on her oversized cuirass and sword, letting them sink, then swam at him like a river rat. Mateo kicked backward in a panic and hit the boat’s overturned hull just as an ear-shattering explosion rocked the water.

He twisted to see the spot where Lia had been a moment before now spouting white flames high into the sky.

“You see her?” The Warlord’s voice was faint, but Cath and Berrum seemed to hear just fine, their heavy things already off as they streaked through the water toward the flames. Grabbing hold of the boat, Mateo stubbornly kept his boots and coat on despite the way they dragged him down deeper into the waves. Saltwater lapped at his chin.

Aurasight stretching farther than it should have with the taste of Aria Seystone’s energy on his tongue, Mateo found Lia inside the tall ship. A boat full of slightly dirty-looking sailors were closing in on one side, and a host of boats were approaching from the Kingsol harbor. The largest boat was close enough he could see a figure jumping into a canoe alongside it—

A girl with braids.

He blinked. Clenched his eyes shut as a wave surged under him, his ears clogged with water. Something inside him twisted again, that darkness in the cracks of his memory waiting. He pushed it away.

“Help me, you little nuisance!” The Warlord’s voice cracked across the waves, and he turned to replace her on the other side of the boat. “You push on your side. I’ll lift.”

He obeyed, but by the time the boat was flipped back over, they’d drifted clear into Kingsol harbor. By the time he was dripping soggily in his chair, the hideous explosions had stopped, the smoke blocking his view of the two boats. His aurasight still strained farther than normal, but Lia was nowhere to be found.

Neither was Berrum.

Cath, however, was slowly making for them through the water. She emerged from the smoke, her sun hat still somehow tied to the ribbon around her throat. Smaller boats from the harbor were just now catching up, wardens shouting for information. Ignoring them, Cath clawed her way onto the turquoise boat, somehow managing not to look bedraggled in the least, as if she drew more power than ever from being soaked to the bone.

“What happened?” he demanded. “You can’t blame this one on me—that was salpowder and fire and—”

“Runaway spiriters?”

He turned slowly to face the Warlord.

“Interesting that she’s here and you’re here….” The Warlord raised her eyebrows as if inviting some kind of confession. “And that you upset our boat just as we saw her.”

Mateo spread his hands. “What in Calsta’s name are you even talking about?”

“The ship went down,” Cath said quietly. “Berrum took one of the boats and started searching up shore. We lost her aura as it sank.”

“You think she drowned?”

Mateo’s breath went in with an awful quiver. Even if that boat went down, Lia couldn’t have gone down with it. She was just outside aura range or…

He had felt her sinking and flicker out. Willow seemed to slick across his thoughts. This was all her plan, you know.

Whose plan? His sister’s? Something inside Mateo seemed to harden and crack.

The Warlord flagged down a boat. “I’m taking this,” she informed the three wardens inside it. “You take these two to the docks now.”

They didn’t say a word, practically shaking as they moved over onto Tual’s boat, then held theirs steady for the Warlord to climb in. “Don’t let him out of your sight,” was all she said to Cath before she rowed off into the smoke.

The boat was very quiet as Cath and the wardens rowed toward the docks, Kingsol a familiar shape that should have been comfortable and happy. Home. How many times had Mateo come here to help his father buy herbs, to buy new charcoals, pigments, and stretched skins and canvas on which to paint?

“You all right, Mateo?” Cath asked, looking over her shoulder at him from behind her oar.

“You’re not scared of the loose shapeshifter?” his voice croaked, water pooling around him like blood. Her mouth quirked, and he couldn’t stand to look at it because it was a smile, as if he were ridiculous. “All I’m worried about is getting a sunburn. You dragged me out here without letting me get my hat.”

Cath pulled her oar out of the water and stood, brandishing it in place of her sword, and Mateo flinched back, wondering if she even needed a sharp edge to skewer him through. But then she put down the paddle, untied the ribbon around her neck, and offered him her dripping hat. The three wardens stared straight ahead, pretending they were alone on the turquoise boat if it meant they didn’t have to join in an argument with a Devoted.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Mateo snapped.

“Why aren’t you being nice to me?” She cocked her head, holding out the hat until she took it. “One of the Devoted that disappeared from our company in Chaol was a close friend of mine. If you do know what happened to them, I’d appreciate knowing.”

Mateo flopped the hat onto his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But then he remembered a wagon with the tarp tied down tight. He remembered a glimmer of aura.

A body Harlan found in the woods. A Devoted with bites taken out of it.

And stains on the wagon bed that were shaped like a human. And Mateo remembered energy flowing into his father, with no idea where it was coming from. He gritted his teeth, adjusting the hat so it blocked his view of Cath.

He didn’t know anything about it. There was no reason to fabricate fanciful stories to fit the one the Warlord had come up with. Though… not all of the Warlord’s theory was exactly untrue.

Once the boat was tied at the dock and the wardens had climbed off, Mateo still didn’t move from his seat, not sure what the Warlord had meant Cath to do with him. “The Warlord said… there were some things she needed to buy in town?” Something from the apothecary to keep him subdued until they slit his throat. Maybe some more awful ingredients for an awful dinner? “I’d be happy to show you where the most disgusting and tasteless food is sold in town, though perhaps you’d like to visit the tailor first, now you’ve lost your…” He glanced from her plain undertunic down to her bare feet. “Everything? I wouldn’t want your less-than-formal appearance to tarnish Calsta’s good name.”

Cath smiled sweetly. “Try not to choke on your own smarm, Mateo.”

“Yes, I meant to see someone about that.” He scratched his head, looking down the docks toward the market, though everyone seemed to have retreated into their chalk-colored homes. “Well, if you’re not feeling a pressing need for normal clothing, I’ve been given an extremely important and sensitive task by our cook.”

“We just watched pirates set fire to a boat and sink it. Even if you somehow aren’t involved with Lia Seystone, doesn’t the idea of her drowning bother you at all? You’re still worried about muffins?”

Mateo’s mouth was already dry, his stomach twisting. “Who else was on that ship?” Maybe his sister had gone down with it too. Or Knox—

No. He’s alive. All of them are, Willow hissed.

The knot in Mateo’s chest came free in a terrible snap. You knew Lia was here all along. You knew she was in the bay, and you know where they are now. Why not tell me?

I don’t know everything, Mateo. Only what they let me see. Knox was being so boring yesterday, but I think I know where the apothecary is, if you want to go get some of that Sleeping Death stuff your father already bought.

Did you replace out something useful, at least? Mateo shot back.

They stole a boat? And they’re going to hide in the waterways. Oh, and kidnap you, I think. I only caught a little bit about that.

Kidnap me? Why? Panic bloomed in Mateo, and when Willow didn’t have anything to add, he shoved her away, trying not to hyperventilate. His sister and Lia and only Calsta knew who else were trying to kidnap him—maybe to kill him off the way Tual had tried to do to Knox?

They can’t do it now. Willow almost seemed to be rolling her eyes, like a little girl Aria’s age. They just stole a boat. You should look for my sword. Maybe they left it in Kingsol.

“Hey, Montanne!”

He looked up to replace Cath tapping her foot on the dock.

“You just going to sit there whispering to yourself?” She waited a moment before making a half-decent bow, inviting him to follow, which Mateo almost appreciated until he realized she was making fun of him. “If you run, I will kill you,” she said when he joined her on the deck.

“Lovely. You can hold my bags.” Mateo climbed onto the dock and walked toward the archway that led into Kingsol, his legs still shaking. He kicked at a cobblestone and almost tripped, determinedly not noticing the way his caretaker Devoted’s hand went to her mouth, covering yet another laugh. It was people like her who had decided Mateo was an abomination. Not fit to live. So really, all of this was her fault.

“You said Hilaria needed blueberries?” Cath asked.

“Yes,” Mateo said cautiously, only vaguely remembering that he’d mentioned blueberries on the trip down. “And something else that started with….” He breathed out in a huff. “Something.”

“Yuzul. I heard her asking you after she broke into your bath. I was just trying to be polite and pretend we couldn’t hear you singing in the tub and then muttering outside the dining room about how much you hate all of us.”

Mateo walked past her, not making eye contact. “I didn’t realize Devoted spent their time eavesdropping.” Lia hadn’t been so terrible, had she?

Why do you like that red-haired Devoted so much? Willow burst into his thoughts again.

Mateo stumbled, almost knocking into a wagon full of cabbages. I don’t feel the need to discuss this with you.

I think I used to like boys. Knox always remembered me liking boys. But I couldn’t eat them, so it doesn’t make sense.

Cath didn’t feel the need to speak for the rest of the walk to the fruit stands at the far side of the market canal. The crates piled on the boats made an explosion of color that had Mateo groping for his drawing satchel only to replace it wasn’t there. He looked back at the bay, a tide of anger rising in him at the sight of the waves that had swallowed something so dear.

It was one of the first things Mateo could remember Tual buying for him—he’d been staring at it, too afraid to ask for money, not believing he deserved anything so beautiful. And then Tual had surprised him with it when they got home, spreading out a new selection of charcoals and inks. He still had that first bound book of sketches and paintings he’d done, as if his hands had long been practicing though he never remembered having picked up a paintbrush before—

The darkness flashed, Willow’s hackles rising.

Mateo forced himself to walk up to the fruit stand, his eyes fuzzing when he tried to focus on the seller. She was about his age. Her dark hair was in two braids that were pinned like a crown across her forehead as many of the shopkeepers wore. “I’m looking for blueberries and… yuzul? And for someone to be nice to me, because I’ve had a terrible morning. People get so angry when you try to push them directly into elsparn-infested water.”

“Looks like it.” The girl cleared her throat, eyeing the drips still running down from his coat and Cath’s bare feet behind her. But then her eyes widened, and she looked down, tension pulling her voice tight. “Blueberries are over there behind the fenela, but I haven’t been able to get yuzul in ages. Hopefully your presence here will help.” She nodded to Cath, not quite meeting her eye.

Mateo moodily moved to where the boxes of blueberries were piled and chose one, cursing Cath’s oath scars. “Why would this inconveniently large person behind me change whether or not you can get yuzul?”

“Well, because of… you know.” The girl nodded vaguely toward the docks.

“Pirates in the harbor?” Mateo looked over his shoulder but found nothing out of the ordinary other than the Devoted cleaning her nails with a knife. He shivered, wondering where she’d been keeping it. “Yes, I believe she killed a few just this morning.”

“Oh, I meant because yuzul comes off the north end of Beilda. Pirates don’t help, but Beildans haven’t been growing as much ever since…”

Mateo picked up a small box of blueberries, wondering what she could possibly be hinting at. Why couldn’t people just say what they meant instead of making him guess? He’d spent most of his life sick, not obtuse, but that didn’t mean he wanted to guess the entire yuzulfruit supply chain.

“No yuzul,” she finally said. “What you have there costs a split copper.”

Mateo handed over the coin and took the berries, wondering how to escape. Back on the boat, running to Lia had seemed best. But if she and his sister were planning to kidnap him—

“Sometimes you can substitute bethl powder in baking when fresh yuzul isn’t available,” Cath offered, interrupting his thoughts. “I was a chef’s apprentice before joining the seclusions. There’s probably an apothecary—”

“I know what you want from the apothecary,” Mateo interrupted. “Something to subdue my very, very dangerous shopping.” Another flash of dread washed over him at the thought of his first and only visit to the local apothecary. Trying to cover it up, he held out the box of berries. “Be sure not to squish any. Your goddess might think you’re trying to consume them via smell.” He paused. “Do nostrils count when it comes to consuming things?” He picked up one of the blueberries, eyeing the little thing. “Just think. Ranks upon ranks of Devoted out just like that.” He squished the berry between his fingers, the tart smell making his tongue water.

“I like blueberries,” the Devoted said with perhaps a little more patience than Mateo had expected from someone who’d so recently lost her sword. It was very annoying. “But I’d rather jump back in the bay than carry them for you.”

“Pity.” He stumbled to catch up when she strode into the crowd, narrowly avoiding a chicken that suddenly took off in front of him in a flurry of squawks. “You know where the apothecary is? Have you been here before?”

“I don’t know which one the Warlord was talking about, but all these towns are set up the same at the center. Market. Apothecary. Fish sellers, flower sellers, clothiers, haberdashers, cordwainers. We can replace you some bethl.” Cath sent him a shrewd look as she drew even with him. “Or a tailor, if you wanted to remove that enormous auroshe insignia on your back before it spontaneously lights on fire.”

“People tend to look a little less harshly at the aukincer’s son when I’m wearing the Warlord’s insignia.”

“Seems like it isn’t working anymore. Didn’t you see the way that girl flinched when she realized who you are?”

“You think my coat made her mad?” Mateo raised his arms, holding the blueberries out and almost losing a few when he gave a little spin. “How could this glorious thing cause any feelings but unadulterated joy?”

“It may have taken some kind of divine intervention for the Warlord to cut through whatever magical nonsense you put up to keep us from discovering where you live, but the people here know you’re living on shapeshifter land, idiot. That girl probably has some ancestor lying dead under the foundation of your house.” Cath gestured at the people milling around them, their hands clutched tight around baskets and bags of food, hoping the big scary Devoted wouldn’t notice them. “You think any of these people don’t remember?”

“Something that happened five hundred years ago?” Mateo popped another blueberry into his mouth.

“The townspeople across the strait got eaten by trees only a few years ago. Your father’s an aukincer, for Calsta’s sake. Do you really think people don’t worry—”

Mateo’s stomach lurched. “Weird references to trees again? And I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to have a problem with my aukincer father when he’s curing your mangy goddess disease.” Mateo picked out one last blueberry—it had to be the last, or Hilaria would know somehow he’d stolen from her berries and would murder him. Probably with the blueberries.

The Devoted drew herself up, tipping her chin back to look at the sky and taking in a long, slow breath, as if calling on Calsta for more than her usual kind of strength. “No. I had a bout of wasting sickness last year. If not for your father, I’d be dead.”

“Great.” Mateo saw the blue door before Cath did and pushed past her, dread bubbling up in his stomach. “Let’s be friends.”

“How can you pretend not to know about the attack on Belash Point?” Cath followed, her bare feet patting against the paving stone, grass grown a little long in the gaps between them. “Kingsol is dying because of that massacre. People used to come here to wait for cures, and now there aren’t any. The ports are almost completely closed. I’ve only seen one set of Beildan braids in the last four years, and she was back in Chaol trying to cure the plague.”

Mateo’s skin prickled at the mention of the girl with braids. The trees eating people, the plague. His sister had been following them a long time, according to his father, but he hadn’t known she’d been messing around with Devoted.

Didn’t she know Devoted killed people like them?

Willow came to attention in his head. What do you mean? You and that girl aren’t the same.

The words sat inside Mateo next to the ones he’d been thinking: my sister. An odd feeling of protectiveness had somehow fizzed up inside him alongside the revulsion, two feelings existing together instead of destroying each other. The trees eating people.

“Trees… like the ones at the dig in Chaol.” Even as he said it, that echo of terror in his mind returned, like a narmaiden’s song.

He stopped outside the apothecary door, staring at his hand on the latch. Willing his fingers to pull it, but it felt shadowy and dark, like a nest of huddled, hungry creatures made of claws and teeth. “What possible reason could anyone have to attack a bunch of healers? Unless they stopped shipping yuzul back then and Hilaria went after them?”

“Why is a very scary thing. It’s what stopped the ships. It’s the reason that shopkeeper girl looked sideways at you. Sad, because there are things enough in this world worthy of fear without her wasting hers on you.”

“You are not very subtle.” Mateo let go of the latch, and even that distance sighed through him like relief. “I thought Devoted were supposed to be elusive and refined.”

“Yes, that’s why we carry swords on our backs.” She pulled the door open for him. When he didn’t immediately walk through, she gestured impatiently. “Well, go on, then. I have a name, and it’s not ‘Devoted.’ I’m Cath, if you were eventually planning to ask.”

Mateo’s cheeks warmed a little. “I know your name.” He forced his feet to move, steeling himself. Inside, there were jars stacked on shelves clear to the ceiling, creatures floating in glass prisons. Mateo tried staring at his hands, at the dingy, crowded ceiling, and then at the floor, but it didn’t stop his eyes fuzzing and the acidic buzzing sound growing in his ears. When he caught sight of the man standing behind the counter, he stumbled, almost knocking over a stack of empty glass bowls. The healer had braids. A hundred braids exactly, one for each of the heavenly herbs.

How do I know that? Mateo squinched his eyes shut when Willow immediately responded with, How in Calsta’s name should I know, Mateo?

Cath had gone tense, looking around for the threat that had made him stumble, and he considered telling her the preserved snake staring down from a jar on the highest shelf had begun talking to him. A shiver ran through him at the thought, though, and he held his tongue, because the lie wouldn’t have been so far from the truth.

Mateo marched up to the counter, not looking at the Beildan’s braids, not thinking of that girl in the tomb who’d been wearing the same kind, or of himself. His own past. I was a healer. I’d be wearing braids too if not for my father.

No, I’d be dead. They tried to kill me on Beilda.

The trees grew around the same time you joined your father’s household. The hidden part of Mateo tried to peer through the cracks in his soul, pulsing just out of reach. He didn’t want to reach for it. He just wanted it to go away.

“Can I help you?” the Beildan asked, continuing to grind something that looked very much like sticky centipede guts in a bowl.

What if Mateo had done it? And it was one of the many things from his memories that his father had taken away?

“I need… something.” Looking around helplessly at the jars, Mateo willed his mind to open and give him back the tiny thing Cath had said could be substituted for yuzul so that he could get out of this cursed shop.

But as he searched his mind, it began to catch on the colors, shapes, smells, and impressions coming faster than he could shove them away. Lilia and corta petals in jars of glass, trebulay powder with a waxed lid to keep the smell from—

—and then Mateo couldn’t move, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, that awful buzzing growing louder with every second he stared at the jars of dead leaves and hair and insect bits until he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel.

Belash Point. Trees eating people. The attack right across the strait from his home.

He grew woozy as Willow darted this way and that inside his head, suddenly frantic. And then—

Click.

A house on the beach. Waves crashing. A shop full of smells that were meant to soothe but were taught to him by a man who didn’t know what the meaning of “soothe” was.

Click.

A panic. People all around him, hurting him. And his sister, so far away. Her braids, the last one newly tied. He was supposed to tie it.

Click.

A storm.

Click.

A boat. High waves. And a beach he couldn’t go back to, trees growing like blades of grass right out of the ground. His sister left behind.

Click. Click. Click.

Trees growing. Like blades.

Click.

“Mateo Montanne, if you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to tear up that fancy coat of yours and use it to clean my sword—”

Mateo forced his eyes open. Somehow he was on the floor, and everything hurt as if he’d fallen and no one had taken the trouble to try to catch him. The feel of hands behind his head made Mateo grateful at least someone was trying to help, until he sat up and saw it was Cath.

“Calsta above,” she swore. “They told me you were delicate. Not that you would expire at the tiniest hint of pressure.”

“Beilda.” He looked past Cath to the healer hovering just behind her, his arms full of little packets he’d probably meant to sprinkle over Mateo one by one. “What really happened on Beilda? There was a ceremony that went wrong. Something bad happened.”

His sister had happened. Mateo remembered seeing the way she’d closed her eyes as she talked to a patient, inhaling slowly before turning to face the family’s herb jars. The way her hands went straight to the right cures, even the ones she shouldn’t have known yet. He’d tried to help her. To mess her up. To make her go slow.

She didn’t know what she was. But he knew.

She didn’t know the elders suspected him of the same witchery and that they were right, not from herbs but because of the way his paints blended together, because he could replace lapis for blue paint when there wasn’t any on the island, and because his pencils were always sharp.

His sister hadn’t known that day when he tried to stop her last braid from being tied that the elders had told him to stay back. They’d wanted to preserve her innocence, taking care of her nasty, corrupted brother in a moment she’d be sure to be looking in the other direction.

“Mateo. Mateo!” Cath’s voice, far away. “He has episodes like this every now and then. We need to get him back to his father.” She turned to look at the Beildan. “Can you help me—”

“Beilda.” Mateo forced the name out, his eyes feeling swollen as he looked up at Cath. “The people… they were found swallowed by trees. Trapped until they suffocated. Starved to death and rotted.”

The look Cath was giving him was a mix of frustration and puzzled curiosity. “Don’t move, all right? When Tual treated me last year, he said I couldn’t move.”

“Excuse me, if you wouldn’t mind. I am, in fact, a healer.” The Beildan gently nudged Cath out of his way and knelt by Mateo on the ground.

Mateo batted the Beildan’s hands away and leveraged himself up from the floor. Trees. Like the ones that had popped up around the tomb.

Because of his sister.

Not many survived, his father had said of her escape from the village. She was worse than a shapeshifter, because she hadn’t done it for power, not for energy, not for immortality. It was just death, slow and terrible, as if she’d meant them to suffer.

She’d done it because of him.

He remembered the apothecary they had meant to start together on the mainland with cupcakes and beautiful jars and no father to tell them they were worthless. He remembered his mother with the few braids she’d earned, the rest of her hair long with beautiful curls. He remembered the dock boy who had found them shells to make into wind chimes. He remembered Anwei, her hand in his, staring out at the world as if she meant to fight anyone who got in their way.

She’d killed them all.

There’s something wrong with that girl, Willow whispered. Something wrong. I always tried to fix it, but Knox wouldn’t let me. She’s mad at you because you were supposed to be dead, but instead you’re alive and forgot about her.

All I wanted was for her to be alive too. I wanted them to leave her alone.

He swallowed hard, trembling all over. Wishing he didn’t remember. Anwei.

She’s coming for you. She’s mad, Mateo. Aren’t I a good girl, replaceing out for you?

How could he have forgotten his twin? And how could his twin have destroyed their entire village? Mateo’s bones felt as if they were sharpening, elongating, as if his natural shape wasn’t enough to deal with such grief. He closed his eyes, willing his body to stop.

Was this what it was to be a shapeshifter? Unsure whether your bones would hold together?

Get the sword, and none of it will matter. We can eat up Lia and your sister both. Then you won’t creak. You’ll be forever, just like me.

“Cath,” he gasped, reaching out to grab the Devoted’s sleeve. She didn’t pull away, helping to hold him up. “All of this stuff that has happened around me. I think I know who is doing it.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I need to talk to my father. We are all in a great deal of danger.”